News / DSV completes DB Schenker buy as it notes strong Q1 performance by Air & Sea

Source: DSV

Danish 3PL DSV formally completed its €14.3bn ($16.3bn) acquisition of German peer DB Schenker today, cementing its position as the world’s largest freight forwarder.

The deal was concluded as DSV announced first-quarter financial results that showed 4.8% year-on-year growth in ebit, due to strong performance in its Air & Sea Forwarding division.

CEO Jens Lund said: “With this acquisition, we become a world-leading player in global transport and logistics, at a time when global supply chains are more in focus than ever before, and our customers need a reliable and agile global network of services and products.

“By combining the two companies we will create a unique flexible platform for long-term financial growth, to the benefit of our customers, employees, shareholders and other stakeholders,” he added.

During today’s earnings call, DSV management explained that, based on its 2024 revenues, DB Schenker expects to add €19.2bn in annual sales, with the combined company boasting “revenue of approximately €41.6bn and a workforce of close to 160,000 employees across more than 90 countries”.

DSV CFO Michael Ebbe said it was targeting $1.4bn in savings by 2028, with Mr Lund adding that, due to DB Schenker’s strong presence in the road freight and contract logistics sectors, the synergies would take longer to achieve than DSV’s previous acquisitions, which were more asset-light.

“With road, it takes three years to get the synergies because there’s a lot more infrastructure [compared to a freight forwarding operation], and with contract logistics, it’s more like four years,” he told analysts.

DSV outlined that, based on 2024 numbers, a DSV-Schenker combination would have handled 2.4m tonnes of air freight, 4.5m teu of ocean freight, €13bn in road freight revenue and some 17.7m sq metres of warehousing for contract logistics operations.

Meanwhile, the Q1 results saw group DSV revenues grow 8.2% year on year, to €5.58bn, while group ebit was up 4.8%, to €517m.

Ebit in its Air & Sea division grew 10.6%, to reach €395m, with ocean freight volumes up 3% – which Mr Lund described as the lower end of the market – to hit 653,000 teu, while air freight volumes were flat, at 334,000 tonnes.

Gross profit in Air forwarding increased 4.9% year on year and Mr Lund said the flat volumes were due to the loss of “three air freight customers, which were quite low-yielding, that we don’t work with anymore or they have transferred their volumes to sea freight – together they represented 100,000 tonnes of air freight”.

Its road division continued to experience a tough market, “due to low activity levels, especially within domestic groupage in some European markets”, which meant a 3% fall in revenue, to €1.36bn, while “lower utilisation, cost inflation, and higher depreciations related to new terminals led to a decrease in ebit of 16.9%”, which finished at €54.6m.

Its Solutions division, which today is renamed Contract Logistics, saw revenue climb 4.9%, to €847m while ebit declined 6.3%, to €63m, primarily due to lower utilisation.

With addition of DB Schenker’s ‘sizeable’ contract logistics division, Mr Lund said, it was targeting a 90% utilisation level at the combined group’s warehouses.

Read Loadstar Premium’s analysis on why “the best may be yet to come” for DSV